Birthdays Can Be Hard To Take

Birthdays can be hard to take, but not when you have a bunch of girlfriends to help you enjoy it.
We are blessed to have a great group of girls, who enjoy getting together for almost any excuse, especially one that calls for cake.  

By the way, I was corrected by another friend recently for calling her a girl.  In the workplace that is looked upon as a put down.  Well we girls accept it readily, because even though we are well educated, we are young at heart and  fun loving. We also have minds of our own and answers to all the world's problems.  Just ask us.  We'll tell you.

And in case you are wondering, I do have an opinion to share.  Of course, this may not be the opinion of one or more in the picture, but I'm very secure in myself and offer this on my own:

Our president went to Arizona, where he has not been particularly helpful this last year, and made a hate speech against most of the nation.  He thinks that the government should tell everyone what he or she should be allowed to say. In his opinion, if there were no one saying things that are offensive to him, no one would commit murder ever again.  If no one ever said anything against him and his progressive pals, there would never be a crazy person decide to kill a lot of people.

Does he realize that this man was highly disturbed and that it was not a secret in his district?  Does he not know the man hated George Bush?  Does he not know he liked the Communist Manifesto?  He and his friends in the press have tried so very hard from the instant this happened to pin it on the right...the least likely of any group to  condone murder ...the ones most likely to be guided by the love of God.

Since they really couldn't make it stick that any one particular 'right winger' pushed this loco into doing this terrible thing, he has decided to blame us all.  We need to be nicer and everything will be all right.

Don't buy it

NO better Word: TACKY

We girls have had a 'tacky' ornament exchange every Christmas for years. This time I found it very hard to find something tacky.  I don't know if it is because I didn't shop in the right places, or if it had to do with the economy and stock was cut down somewhat...and what better things to cut?

This year we ran into a snag...the global warming has drowned us in snow this year and the night of our party was no exception.  Terrible driving conditions kept us home on the only night we had found that all  those in the state could meet.

We postponed it until January 11, the next time most could get together. And wouldn't you believe it, bad weather, icy streets hit us again.  But we were determined.  I had the farthest to drive, so I left my house really early expecting to get up to the party town before the roads got too bad.  Too late. About 1/3 way there I hit pure ice and there were three lanes of traffic all going 5 miles an hour or less for many miles.  It took me and hour to make a 1/2 hour trip.  But having prepared ahead, I was not late.  I also thought to take pjs with me so that I could spend the night with a friend.  The next morning there was six inches on snow on top of my car.  Al Gore just isn't talking loud enough,  or God just isn't paying attention to him.

Well we had a good dinner, celebrated Phyllis' birthday and exchanged our gifts.  I think we need a new word to describe these unfortunately terrible Christmas tree ornaments. 'Tacky' just won't do it. From left to right. Jane received the ugliest thing I've ever seen.  What is it? We don't know.   What does it have to do with Christmas?  We don't know. Next Paulette was fortunate to get mine. I had to 'make' it since I couldn't find anything 'tacky'.  I bought a snowman ornament frame and put in it a picture of our smug President. He is the ultimate 'snowman'. He sure did snow a lot of people before the '08 election.

Then Jill got a spongy ballerina .  Yuck.  At the bottom, Sali got, not ornaments, but Christmas decorations,  big, ugly felt poinsettias.  Teresa received a large pink chandelier...perfectly awful for a tree and I got a plastic musical note, which wouldn't look bad on a kid's tree, but wouldn't quite make it on my angel tree.

The next morning I left just after rush hour to take advantage of the roads having been cleaned. However, it was worse than the night before and it took me and hour and 1/2  to reach my house.

This is our last year for tacky.  We've had  enough. We'll be choosing another theme next year.
And we're hoping for a different president as well.  Wow, that would be the ultimate Christmas present!

1946 Little Girl Innocence

Haven't added a page from my 'autobiography' for a while. I think this is cute. I like the background paper with the scallop and punched holes around the edge.

We were girly girls back then, somewhat prissy at times.  Here we are sitting at my friend's door...no cares in the world.  Oh to have the same innocence for our children today.  Most are thrown into the world before they have the training and/ or defenses to fight all the corruption.

The media, in the form of TV, generally reaches kids early.  They are even confronted with evil in their classrooms and day care centers. What chance do they have?  No wonder  some of the younger voters have no guidelines by which to judge what they hear.

Have you heard about the new poll that was taken with a supposedly  random sampling of adults whose conclusion was that only 25 % of the people are now for repealing Obama 'healthcare'?   Don't believe it. Pollsters are trying to influence public opinion by making us think that more people are for the plan than really are.  I'm not sure why their objective, but it is obvious there is some miscalculating going on out there.  We must continue to stand against it and encourage our congressmen and women to vote to repeal the full 2,000 some pages.  Well Nancy, we now have read it  and it must go.

Our Grand Daughter Leah Loves NYC

Well,  not sure what is going on here tonight, but it must be a problem with my server.  I can not upload a picture  here or to facebook.  I would just settle for imparting wisdom, but I'm vacuous.

 I'm  undertech.  Oh and of course my spell check doesn't like that 'word'.  Must I say I'm lacking in technical skills?  Do you ever get frustrated by malfunctioning computers or internet problems?  You think it is bad now?  Just wait until the government starts regulating it. Not something I want to think about right now.

Time is passing quickly and so it looks as if there will be no layout tonight.  I will try again tomorrow to upload a picture of Leah in the big city.

Success today.  All we had to do is restart the computer. Wonder if I'll ever get used to a MAC.

Winter Wonderland in Ohio

ORU met for dinner at the Rosewood Grill in Hudson for Phyllis' birthday. We all arrived individually and  none of us noticed the fire pit.  We are hoping that it just wasn't burning that early.

It made a great foreground for a picture on a very cold night.  There was plenty of snow at that time and later in the night we got about 6 more inches.  That's winter in Ohio.  Love it... or leave it...and that's what many do.

 One of the girls, Robin, is not present because she is in...Florida.  Another has moved to Texas, but  not because of the weather.  Several of us really enjoy winter and plan to stay around for a while.

Hand in Hand

When Caleb's Daddy, John and his brothers and sisters were  little the government authorized putting fluoride in the drinking water. At that time there were scientists warning about  the dangers of it, especially if a child was to get too much.  One of the effects they warned about was that it could cause mental retardation.  I made sure my children did not drink water with the additive.

Well as you can imagine,  50 years after health officials adopted this policy, the government has finally caught up with the scientists who knew all along it was a bad idea.  The headlines in our paper one day last week announced  a new finding that too much fluoride is not good. They have reduced the amount a child should have to .07 mg per liter. Over the years some areas have added .07 to 1.2 mg per liter and many kids were also getting it in their toothpaste.  Some were taking supplements as well.

Supposedly the mineral is streaking and sometimes pitting the teeth.  I'm wondering if there might be some mental retardation as well that will be kept under cover.  If so, we will probably never know.  But let this be a lesson.  History repeats itself. Officials are always changing their minds as to what is good for us and what is harmful.  We can not believe something just because the government says it is so.

Caleb's First Painting

You get to see Caleb's first masterpiece.  Looks like the medium is pastels.  He sure got into it. What a sweetheart.  I can hardly wait to see him.

A few days ago when we went online to purchase our tickets, I had my travel miles laid out.  I was ready to get my 'free' ticket.  Right.  Well, Ron got so perturbed with their tactics that he just paid cash saying it was cheaper.  Now, I haven't really figured that out yet, but I suppose he meant it was easier than dealing with Continental.

Years ago when we started piling up the air miles, the free tickets were great.  We even went to Bulgaria on them.  But now that the airlines are having trouble with the cost of fuel and some of the punitive laws the government has passed, these tickets are not such a good deal.

 When they were issued we got air miles.  Wouldn't you think that 50,000 miles meant just that?  That number should take me around the earth...twice!  But it seems, it will only take me to Florida and back home.  So my air miles have been devalued.

This reminds me of a cartoon I saw in our newspaper about a week ago.   It shows a man at the ticket counter and the airline representative is telling him, "I'm sorry sir, but all of your frequent flier miles have already been used up by your lost luggage."  Perhaps that is what happened to ours.